OLPC's capitulation to Windows: A community failure?

Is Nicholas Negroponte's capitulation to Windows last month due largely to a lack of open-source community involvement in the One Laptop Per Child project?

That's what Groklaw is suggesting--following a post by free software guru Richard Stallman.

According to Groklaw:

OLPC hoped for contribution from the community to its interface, Sugar, but this has not happened much. Partly that's because OLPC has not structured its development so as to reach out to the community for help--which means, when viewed in constructive terms, that OLPC can obtain more contribution by starting to do this.

Basically, Negroponte's decision to embrace Windows comes down to a belief that when community fails, default to whatever proprietary vendor makes the best interface. (If this is the case, Negroponte would have done well to choose the Mac's interface, but I digress...)

This is a weak-kneed, wrong-headed way for Negroponte--the founder and chairman of OLPC--to attempt to resolve the problem. It will only serve to perpetuate the very problem OLPC was designed to solve, as Groklaw writes:

I wonder if Negroponte has done (his due diligence) with regard to (Windows) XP. Is it going to be improved and extended or even maintained? Who will fix it when it crashes? Who will protect the little children from malware, which Microsoft software is so prone to be a victim of? Sugar and the XO (were) set up to provide real security. Can anyone say the same about Microsoft's software? What are you doing to those children?

OLPC isn't merely about cheap PCs. Anyone can build those (though Microsoft's Windows certainly doesn't help there). OLPC is rather about liberating developing nations from their vassal status that continually keeps them at the mercy of the pricing and licensing of Microsoft and other proprietary vendors. By building on Windows, Negroponte cuts his vision off at the knees, stultifying its potential to benefit children in developing nations.

As Stallman notes, it need not be this way. The problem derives from Negroponte's flawed attempts to build community. Put bluntly, Negroponte is no Linus Torvalds.

Negroponte has craved control, battering Intel and others for developing competing devices instead of finding ways to invite them into the OLPC community. He seems to want to be the center of attention, rather than letting the project attract developers on its own merits.

Negroponte needs to step back, take a deep breath, and encourage community adoption of OLPC. "Community" is an overused term and extremely difficult to manage in practice. "Encourage the community" is easily said, but is very difficult to accomplish in practice.

Even so, it's the only way to build OLPC in the image of those who will use the laptops. It's the only way to ensure maximum freedom within the project. It's worth the effort.

[john55440]

OLPC is about cheap PCs, not about the promotion of Linux.

[ashimmy]

Its about the kids, stupid. Matt not to say you are stupid, but to quote Bill Clinton or James Carville, OLPC is about getting kids laptops that they can use to become educated enough to compete and thrive in the world they will grow up in. The OLPC project has been hijacked by the open source movement and Negroponte is trying to take it back. I have written more at my blog here

[plbyrd]

@Matt

I notice you really changed up your opening paragraphs of this entry. Was this in response to criticism you received?